William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809-19 May 1898) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 3 December 1868 to 17 February 1874 (interrupting Benjamin Disraeli's terms), from 23 April 1880 to 9 June 1885 (succeeding Disraeli and preceding Robert Gascoyne-Cecil), from 1 February to 20 July 1886 (interrupting Gascoyne-Cecil's terms), and from 15 August 1892 to 2 March 1894 (succeeding Gascoyne-Cecil and preceding Archibald Primrose). He was a charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, and he was nicknamed the "Grand Old Man" and "The People's William".

Biography
William Ewart Gladstone was born in Liverpool, England in 1809 to a Scottish family, and he first entered the House of Commons in 1832 as a Tory; from 1834, he was a Conservative Party MP. He served as a minister in both of Robert Peel's governments, and he joined the liberal Peelites in 1846 and the Liberal Party in 1859. Gladstone went on to serve as Chancellor under George Hamilton-Gordon from 1852 to 1855, Henry John Temple from 1859 to 1865, and John Russell from 1865 to 1866. Gladstone emphasized equality of opportunity, free trade, and laissez-faire economic policies, and he was popular among the working-class.

In 1868, he became Prime Minister for the first time, passing reforms such as the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the introduction of secret voting. After electoral defeat in 1874, he resigned as Liberal leader, but he made a comeback in 1876 based on Turkey's reaction to the Bulgarian uprising. From 1879 to 1880, he launched a massive speaking campaign which revolutionized modern electoral campaigning, and he won the 1880 general election. His second ministry saw the passage of the Third Reform Act (extending suffrage to the countryside) as well as the Mahdist War in Sudan and the improvement of the legal rights of Irish tenant farmers (although his government also passed repressive measures against them). He returned to office in 1886, and his proposal of home rule for Ireland was defeated in the House of Commons. The resulting split in the Liberal Party helped keep his party out of office, and his Second Home Rule Bill, proposed during his brief ministry of 1892-1894, was defeated in 1893. He left office in 1894 at the age of 84, the oldest Prime Minister and the only Prime Minister to have served four terms. He left Parliament in 1895 and died three years later.